


Aftermath

by caloub



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Post 9.25, Pre-Slash, Spoilers for the end of the season
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-08 20:36:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18902200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caloub/pseuds/caloub
Summary: Danny and Steve through the immediate and less immediate events that follow the end of the season.A bit of angst, a bit of comfort, a bit of closure.Pre-slash.





	Aftermath

Jerry gets shot.  
  
He saw the gun, he jumped to push Steve, whose reaction was delayed because he turned around.  
  
After the gunshot everyone’s ears are ringing, but time seems to slow down. While she was kind of prepared for what she wanted to do, she’s still a bit in shock because it’s the first time she shoots to kill like this, and the first time she misses. She can’t escape. Her son saw everything.  
  
Danny has to choose in a split second between getting the child to safety because he shouldn’t have had to witness this, and going after the woman. He sees her still, tackles her from behind to get her on the floor and immobilise her. She drops the gun, but thankfully it doesn’t shoot off again. But now he’s stuck because he doesn’t have any ziplocks to bind her wrists. He holds her with a knee on her back and a hand on her wrists, and gets his phone. Someone has to call HPD.  
  
Steve is already on the phone with 911, kneeling next to Jerry, trying to keep pressure on the wound, talking to him. In those moments his training kicks in and he manages to stay calm, even if it’s Jerry down there, Jerry who took a bullet for him. Stupid Jerry and his big heart and his will to protect others. Steve should have gotten shot. He’s trained for it, he’s used to it, not Jerry who has little field training and doesn’t even carry a firearm. Jerry isn’t supposed to be so close to danger. Steve is talking to him with a low voice, urging him to stay awake, telling him how stupid he was and that if he dies Steve will take his badge back.  
  
The child is in shock. He probably wasn’t expecting his mom to do this. He ran to her after Danny took her down, knelt next to her and talked to her in Arabic, crying. He knows she’s gonna be taken from him, even if in a different way than his dad was.  
  
HPD and the EMTs arrive quickly on scene, but it feels a lot longer to Steve and Danny who are still holding on Jerry and the shooter. HPD takes her and the child away, while the EMTs take Jerry. Steve and Danny follow them to the hospital. While Steve drives in silence, Danny calls the rest of the team to tell them what happened.  
  
When they get to the hospital, they meet up with Tani and Junior, Grover and Adam, and they wait.  
  
They’re all shocked into silence. Steve seems to hold it together but Danny knows it’s not going to last forever. The guilt will kick in. Danny still has trouble believing what happened, even though he was there. By force of habit he starts writing his deposition in his head, trying to fix ideas before he forgets details. He doesn’t really care at that moment but he knows that later on he’ll want paperwork to be perfect.  
  
Jerry is in critical condition. The doctors can’t tell anything to the team, but he gets out of the OR and he’s placed in ICU, where they say the team will be able to visit in a day. The prognosis is still uncertain on the sequels. Steve did his best to contain the blood but Jerry still lost an important amount. While he might seem fine, there will be no accounting for sequels until he wakes up. ‘If he wakes up’ is what the doctors don’t say. After staying a few hours, Grover goes home, and advises Tani and Junior to do the same. Someone will need to get to the office in the morning, deal with the aftermath and the current work. He knows Steve and Danny are going to wait all night and then some.  
  
They do stay all night in the waiting room, mostly in silence. Danny has called Rachel to let her know and talked to the kids. When morning comes, they still cannot visit Jerry. Danny manages to coax Steve to go home, take a shower, change clothes, eat a little. They’ll be back, he says. They’ll be on time for the start of visiting hours, in case they can stay. He promises. Steve goes. despite his training and his experience, the tiredness starts to kick in. His movements are slow, he seems elsewhere, not hearing when Danny speaks to him. The guilt trip has begun.  
  
Danny drives them to his home. He gets Steve inside, gets him in the bathroom, starts the coffee and the toasts while Steve takes his patented navy shower. Steve comes out hagard, in just a towel because Danny didn’t have time to get him clothes. Wordlessly he takes up finishing to prepare the food so that Danny can go and have a shower himself.  
  
It’s not their first rodeo. They know they need to talk about what happened. A lot. The years helped them get comfortable in this like in other aspects of their partnership. They’re more open with their feelings. They manage to use words. The therapy helped with that, gave them coping mechanisms for this kind of situations. Above all, they know each other so well by now. Danny knows he’ll have to convince Steve it’s not his fault. He’ll have to help him deal with the guilt. As team leader and navy commander, Steve is very protective of his team and feels responsible for them to a fault. even when he’ll acknowledge that it happened in a split second and that he’s not responsible for this woman coming to shoot him, he’ll keep thinking he should have done things differently. Should have been more wary of her intentions, considering what happened with her husband. He’ll feel guilty for what will happen to the child who will grow without parents, as an orphan, exactly like he did. But the child is even younger than Steve was at the time and it kills him to think about what life is going to be for him. He idly wonders to what extent he can get involved and at least be informed of where the boy ends up and what happens to him. He wonders if he’ll see him again.  
  
They start talking when they sit down to eat. They’re both exhausted. After they finish eating, sleepiness hits them hard. Danny doesn’t think he can drive safely, even if Steve has been trained to endure exhaustion and stay alert. They go to bed. As usual after these sort of events, they don’t like the idea of being alone. It’s not the first time they share a bed, and Danny’s has a thick mattress, a nice comfortable quilt, it couldn’t be more inviting. They slip between the sheets and settle next to each other, without touching. Steve doesn’t like being touched in these situations. feeling Danny’s body heat and hearing is respiration is enough. Danny doesn’t mind, having Steve next to him is enough. They sleep.  
  
When they wake up Rachel is in the living room. She brought food so that they don’t have to cook, and the children. She knows that seeing them, hugging them, talking to them helps Steve and Danny get through trauma like nothing else can. She doesn’t say anything about them sharing Danny’s bed, even though she saw them getting out of the room together. She knows it’s not the first time it happens. even though Danny has been very unwilling to discuss their rekindled relationship with Steve these past weeks, all three of them know that Danny won’t otherwise draw back from his relationship with Steve. Rachel has to know that, even if she’s never brought it up with Steve.  
  
He can’t pretend to understand what’s happening on that front. He didn’t have time to pry anything from Danny before the shooting happened, but he doesn’t like it. It’s not the first time Danny gets back with Rachel. It’s also not the first time it happens after Danny and Steve have been hooking up from time to time, so he doesn’t understand Danny’s reluctance to talk about it, admit it, act happy. It’s not like they broke up because their relationship is not like that. Has not been like that. maybe Danny fears Steve’s disapproval. But he should also know by know that Steve will support him, even in this, even if he doesn’t understand it. He knows that it makes sense from a rational perspective. He respects Danny’s desire to mend his family and spend more time with his children, especially as Grace will soon leave for college. Anyway, he can’t bring it up now. Rachel is here, for one, and he doesn’t want to appear hostile to her, not when she brought support. And it feels... So mundane, so insignificant to bicker with Danny about this while Jerry is in the hospital because of him.  
  
They get more coffee and manage to eat some food before hugging Grace and Charlie again and going back to the hospital, on time for visitation hours. Jerry is still there, his status and recovery still uncertain. Steve sits next to his bed. Danny barely holds a sigh. If the perp hadn’t been in custody, Steve would have been out there moving heaven and earth to arrest her, but as things are he doesn’t have anything to keep him moving and not let him stay next to Jerry, alone with his thoughts and his guilt. This man. This infuriating man. Danny almost wishes a case would come and take them away from the hospital and provide him an opportunity to rant and make sure Steve starts dealing with things and moving on.  
  
He takes a chair and sits next to Steve. He knows he’s too restless to be able to sit vigil for as long as Steve but he can still try to hold on for a bit. They sit in silence, almost lulled back to sleep by the bips and noises emitted by the machines around Jerry’s bed, and outside of his room.  
  
After a while, Danny can’t stay still and silent anymore, he has to move, he’s restless and he knows it’s better for him to move and talk rather than try to contain it, which will annoy Steve more and faster. He knows there’s one thing that might grab Steve’s attention and distract him temporarily from Jerry. Continuing their conversation where they left off, even if he wasn’t looking forward to it. But they do need to talk about it and what happened to Jerry makes it seem less daunting.  
  
So he starts. He talks to Steve about Rachel. About how things got better between them since Grace’s accident. How they were able to talk about some things and get closure on old grudges. How Rachel is happier as a single mom than she has been in a long time. How Grace and Charlie are also much happier to spend more time with him, and time with both their parents, together, as a family.  
  
Steve listens and takes it in. That’s what he thought, what he expected to hear. He understands. What Danny and he could maybe have is so different, seems so far from this perfect family picture. They’re also older than they used to be. He for one, knows that he doesn’t want to take risks. He risks his life every day at work, and it’s a choice he made, but he’s tired of the effort of trying to find someone, open himself, and have things not work out. Since Lynn he’s taken on a more casual lifestyle, made of benefits with friends, among which Danny, which fulfills his physical needs while being low risk emotionnally and not requiring too much effort. He knows he’ll support Danny as best as he can no matter what but he can’t help think that after Catherine, Danny is another one who got away. They fit together so well he sometimes can’t remember why they didn’t get into a proper romantic relationship before.  
  
Danny feels Steve still as tense next to him. He knows that the way he’s talking about it sounds like a justification, like he’s pleading his case to Steve. Trying to show him it’s not that bad, instead of telling him how happy he is. It’s ridiculous. Rachel is a good person. Mostly. After all she’s his only ex-wife and the mother of his children. He shouldn’t feel like he’s letting Steve down. They’re not like that. They’re close, yes, and they used to hook up, sometimes, a few times along the years, yes, and Steve is an uncle to Danny’s children, the godfather Matty can’t be anymore, but they’re not like that. It’s all that comes to him regarding this: they’re not like that. He has nothing in front of him but time, so he forces himself to really think about it, seriously consider why he’s thinking that and how it makes him feel. Somehow he’s always been avoiding it one way or another, but in the face of Steve’s mutism, he has nothing else to do. He could go, but he doesn’t want to leave Steve alone with Jerry and his guilt, not yet, not when he can still sits for a while. So he thinks about Steve and Rachel and the way he’s been presenting their relationship.  
  
He still has feelings for her, he'll always have feeling for her. They've been through a lot together and he never found the same intimacy with another woman, also because he was wary to be hurt after what happened with Rachel. And he feels what Steve is going to say almost before he says it: what about Charlie? What about Rachel's betrayal and missing the first years of his son's life and only learning about it all because she needed him and was forced to tell him? What about his grief?  
  
And that's the thing right here. Yes, falling back to her was somewhat easy and natural. Yes, it's better for the children. Yes, it's reassuring because they already know each other. But the problem is, the issue he has, the one thing that made him uncomfortable telling Steve, facing Steve, is that even now, after all this time, he doesn't trust her. Not completely. With the children, mostly, because he knows they both share parental love and devotion. But still, he can't forget. He can't forget uprooting his whole life without being consulted. He can't forget missing his son's first years. Their fight when Gracie was in the hospital showed it. He still resents her for all of that, for keeping him away from his children, and even if he usually has a hold on it, he's afraid it will come out at their first serious fight. It's something he feels he'll always hold over her. She can't make up for it and he hasn't managed to accept it. Steve, Steve knows him so well that this exact discussion was bound to happen at Danny's first words announcing they got back together.  
  
Steve looks at Danny, but doesn't know what to say. It's a tricky situation, he doesn't really feel like he's able to help Danny there. He doesn't have this experience of marriage and children. He's afraid his opinion is not something Danny is ready to hear. But thus is friendship, right? So he tells him anyway. "You know, Danno, it sounds like you know yourself it's a bad idea. I will support you no matter what you choose, but I'm not sure this will really make you happy. On the long run, I mean."  
  
Danny's face is eloquent as always, and he knows it. He knew it would be Steve's reaction and he'd been trying to hold it off. Even know his kneejerk reaction is to deny, to keep justifying, even though Steves right. He can't do that to Rachel. And give a false hope to the children. He knows the best thing to do would be to stop things now, nicely, before they really get serious, and keep their friendship and good entente to look after Charlie and Grace. But it also feels like he's giving up on his last chance to get what he wanted from life. It's tough to swallow. His relationship with Melissa showed him he wasn't really ready to open up to someone else, even after being together for years. He feels stupid now, like damaged goods.  
  
Steve sees his face get through all the stages of his internal journey. Denial, acceptance, sadness. He knows Danny like the back of his hand, and he knows exactly what he's thinking. He puts his hand on Danny's knee to comfort him a bit. "You're so brave, Danno. For wanting to give it another shot despite everything." He pauses. "I love you." It's something they still tell each other sometimes, though less than in the beginning. They know it's true and they trust each other. But sometimes it's good to hear it and it definitely seems like Danny needs to hear this right now. And Steve realises that while he was focused on Danny he put aside his guilt for Jerry and he feels... More ready to face the guilt. He has Danny to help him and take care of him. "You'll never really be alone, Danno, you will always have Gracie and Charlie, and me." Danny gives him a smile that still looks a bit sad at that, but the hand that covers and squeezes his tells him that the message has been received.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimers  
> \- English is not my first language  
> \- it hasn't been betaed  
> \- it was impulsively written in one sitting way past my bedtime and posted immediately so that i don't talk myself out of it after sleeping and really thinking about it
> 
> Also  
> \- i'm very new at writing fiction and at sharing it  
> \- kudos, comments and concrit are welcome if you feel like it  
> \- it's the first time i'm posting on AO3 so let me know if it's not properly tagged or something


End file.
